


Fate & Hope

by TheQueen



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Allura (Voltron)-centric, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Drabble, F/M, Romantic Soulmates, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, Soulmates
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-15
Updated: 2018-02-15
Packaged: 2019-03-18 19:54:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,044
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13688682
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheQueen/pseuds/TheQueen
Summary: Fate is as fickle as a yelmer’s love and just as temperamental. There is no point chasing after it. When it comes, it comes.A commission





	Fate & Hope

Allura is seven when she learns about soulmates. 

It’s not something her people put much stock in. There is no point. Fate is as fickle as a yelmer’s love and just as temperamental. There is no point chasing after it. When it comes, it comes. 

The only reason it is ever discussed -- and at length -- is because her soulmark is an oddity. Five characters in a language she has never seen are burned into her skin along her collarbone, present no matter what she shapeshifts into. Most Altean soulmarks are colors: splotches of reds and oranges for her father and Coran, or yellows and purples for her mother and her father. 

At first she ignores it as she has been taught to. When her soulmate comes they will come. But the court talks, whispers of her chosen being one of the “developing” aliens.  _ Or worse _ , they claim,  _ a fledgling species _ . She does her best not to give in, to rise above the taunts of branding and primitive.  _ How sad, _ they say when they think she cannot hear as if there is a thing in the castle she does not know, _ that our future prince shall be a brute _ .

But that is her soulmate they mock, her lover, and their future crown prince. 

The day she reacts it is as brilliant as it is violent, a backhand across the face of one of her many suitors who promises to “save her from her destiny.” It topples him out of his seat and echoes, a sharp crack, through the room.

When she rises to meet her father it is with fire in her eyes. “The next person,” she had said with a voice loud enough to carry across the ballroom and into the courtyard, “who mocks my soulmate shall face worse.”

No one had attempted to stop her from leaving the room.

No one dared to whisper about her soulmark again.

.

The day Zarkon rises from the dead and brings with him hell’s fury, Allura had no thoughts of her soulmate. She had no time to mourn her fate.

.

Allura wakes to a universe at war. What she hopes for is an army, a legion to return to. At the very least the last of Altea’s reserves fighting the good fight on the last battlefront. What she finds is a group of “humans” so new to space they’ve barely left their solar system. 

She wakes to hope.

She puts them to work immediately, calls forth her connection to the lions and names them as the Black Lion sees fit. When she doubts her choice, the Lioness simply reminds her to have faith.

The brand along her collarbone burns. 

.

The first time she thinks about her soulmate after awakening is right after the fourth time she nearly died. They’ve made contact and freed another balmerian. The promise of new quintessence reserves makes breathing easier. It is daunting scraping together supplies on the edge of the known universe, their allies are powerful and useful, though spread thin. She and Coran have been pouring over their recently updated star maps looking for the most strategic footholds. Her paladins are still learning the workings and politics of the universe. For now they are rather hopeless, but she sees future strategists in Shiro and Lance. 

The minute she can she will put them to work.

Hunk and Pidge are gifts in their own right. Their knowledge of technology and their speed of learning is more than she could have hoped for. Coran has kept them close, teaching them about the maintenance of the ship. The Olkari have agreed to lend a scholar or two to help catch all three of them up to speed on the recent technological advancements. 

It’s then, thumbing through a report from the Shay about recent contact with a slave colony on three planets from their own, that she remembers her mark. 

She sets the report down and looks down at the white letters visible in her nightgown. She wonders, after all this time and change… after ten thousand years…

Fate is a fickle thing. 

But it comes.

.

It’s Pidge who tips the scale. 

Her paladins have slowly been learning Altean, but for the most part they communicate in their own language. When they forget, they sometimes write their reports in their “English.” Pidge is the most forgetful. 

She had considered it before, the first time she had seen their writing, that her mark might be of their language. But the looping is different in certain places and often the characters blur together. Sometimes it is hard to find the similarities between all of their different handwriting styles.

But it’s as she scans through Pidge’s report of a recent trade deal, picking the Altean from the English and circling the entire sections she needs redone so she can read the bloody thing, that she notices it. Two words at the bottom, clear as day:  _ Rangi Galeai _ . 

“Who is this?” she asks, pressing the paper to Pidge’s face and out of breath from sprinting across the castle. 

“What?” Pidge asks, frowning as she takes the paper from Allura. “What? What did I do?”

“The name!” Allura cries, hair frazzled. It’s only then she remembers she’s in her nightgown, lion slippers snug around her feet and cardigan draped over her shoulders. She pulls the fabric aside and points to the name scribed into her skin. “Who is this?”

Pidge stares, eyes wide in what Allura assumes is shock before she smiles, smug. “Lance is going to lose his shit.”

.

“Hello, Hunk,” Allura says as Pidge exits the room, dragging Lance and Keith with her. Allura had left her cardigan off, shoulders bare to the chill of the room. Hunk’s eyes do not stray from her collarbone. “Or should I say Rangi.”

He smiles for her, brittle and hopeful. “No one’s called me that in a while.”

She flushes and rubs her arms awkwardly. It is strange to be this bare, this… vulnerable. “So what now?” she asks. The danger, perhaps, of never bothering to think of your soulmate: what happens next?

Hunk shrugs before shuffling over to sit next to her, his shoulder like a fire against her own.”I guess we’ll have to see.”

Allura dares to hope.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you littlebird12 for supporting me! I really enjoyed writing this fic. It is super cute!
> 
> I headcanon Hunk’s real name is Rangi Galeai. Rangi Galeai is a Samoan name that means "Heavenly Winds." Rangi means "heaven/sky" and Galeai means "gale/wind." 
> 
> Please let me know what you think!
> 
> My tumblr: https://thequeen117.tumblr.com/


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